In telecommunication, there is a continued demand to provide a larger variety of services utilizing the infra-structure of telecommunication networks. With the continued improvement to electronic devices involved in the telecommunication infra-structure, such as computers connected to the internet and mobile phones, the potential for providing a large variety of services has been significantly increased. At the same time, one of the challenges emerging now is to provide such services in a user-friendly way.
As an example mobile phones are primarily designed for voice calling and sending short text messages (popularly known as SMS). However there is great demand for access to mobile services, such as send/receive emails from phones/fax machines, call alert, and resource management (e.g. downloading and listening of music). A large number of services have been introduced in recent times. However they are not user friendly and require user familiarity and availability of certain additional technologies, for instance General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), which may not be supported in all mobile phones.
There are problems such as the complex, time-consuming and sometimes expensive processes that users have to undergo in order to use the mobile services. In many instances, they have to do one or more of the following: (1) change phones, (2) remember complex commands, (3) pay for expensive services, (4) structure their communication in a prescribed format, and (5) spend time.
An example of a prior art for Email-to-Phone service is GB2380897, entitled “Sending Email To Mobile Phone As Text Message”.
Another example of a prior art for Email-to-Phone service is GB2381998, entitled “Delivery of email to text telephone”.
An example of a message retrieval service is EP1104206, entitled “Mobile Station (MS) Message Selection Identification System”.
An example of a music delivery service is DE19950001, entitled “Method for the selection, transmission, and playback of pieces of music by subscribers of a digital mobile communication network”.
An example of a service for sending voice emails from a mobile phone is WO02096076, entitled, “Voice Attachment To An Email Using A Wireless Communication Device”.
An example for a service for sending audio file attachments in an electronic message from a telephone is U.S. Pat. No. 6,385,306, entitled, “Audio file transmission method”.
An example of a service for sending text and multimedia messages to email users from a mobile phone is WO03024069, entitled, “Method And System For Handling Multi-Part Messages Sent To E-Mail Clients From Cellular Phones”.
An example of a service for sending SMS/voice emails/IM from a mobile phone WO0135615, entitled, “Telephone Based Access To Instant Messaging”.
An example of telephony and online communication service is CA2379741, entitled, “Instant Messaging Using A Wireless Interface”.
An example of a user-to-user voice messaging service is EP1185068, entitled, “Method and apparatus for voice messaging originated by mobile terminals”.
An example of a solution to a voice/fax messaging service is WO0110089, entitled, “A Method And System For Electronic Messaging”.
An example of mobile phone call recording, storing and retrieving service is US2002155847, entitled, “Communications recording system”.
An example of a Personalized Identification Number (PIN) based telephone service is U.S. Pat. No. 6,072,860, entitled, “Telephone apparatus with recording of phone conversations on massive storage”.
An example of a mobile phone for secured recording and reproduction of phone conversation is RU2207740, entitled, “Mobile Phone With Scope For Uninterrupted Recording”.
An example of a mobile set for real time recording of voice/data/video is US2004041694, entitled, “Methods of recording voice signals in a mobile set”.
An example of a telephone recording service is WO02069612, entitled, “System And Method For Recording Telephone Conversations”.
An example of a recording and recorded Call Retrieval service is WO02093874, entitled, “System And Method For Telephone Call Recording And Recorded Call Retrieval”.
An example of a service for recording telephone conversation and user memoranda is EP1199870 entitled, “Mobile telephone recording system and method”.
An example of a recurring conversation recording service is EP1113652, entitled, “Recurring conversation recording”.
An example of an emergency call service solution is US2002067806, entitled, “System and method for urgent phone message delivery”.
Another example of an emergency call service solution is U.S. Pat. No. 6,477,374, entitled, “Apparatus and method for calendar based call routing”.
An example of a call screening service is U.S. Pat. No. 5604792, entitled, “Call screening method”.
An example of call screening service with selective call acceptance is U.S. Pat. No. 5,596,627, entitled, “Call screening method using selective call acceptance”.
Examples of anonymous telephone systems are WO9501037, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,361,295, 5,768,348 and 5,623,536, where all four are entitled, “Anonymous interactive telephone system”.
An example of a system involved in call forwarding service is EP0674419, entitled, “Communication system for processing caller ID information”.
An example of a message notification service using email is US2001039561, entitled, “Method for notifying message reception by e-mail in voice mail system”.
An example of an advertising service is CA2388418 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,381,465, both entitled, “System And Method For Attaching An Advertisement To An SMS Message For Wireless Transmission”.
An example of a service for music and information delivery is WO0128183 entitled, “Method for the selection, transmission, and playback of pieces of music by subscribers of a digital mobile communication network”.
An example of a service for anonymous sending of items to a physical address is US2004002903 entitled, “Electronic purchase of gods over a communications network including physical delivery while securing private and personal information of the purchasing party”.
The applicant has found that each of the above prior art systems and methods suffer from inflexibility of the customized services provided and/or from complex and not user friendly authentication and/or set-up processes.
Hence, it was with knowledge of the foregoing concerns that the present invention was conceived and has now been reduced to practice.